FORM, FUNCTION, BEAUTY == GESTALT
and reviews are being pulled along by this same current – a regrettable development, but not a tragic one, because in spite of this (indeed often because of this) things turn up now and again that merit the appellation of ‘good form’. And ‘good form’ doesn’t have to mean boring, contrary to what the prophets of doom from the neo-rococo circles maintain, their gaze set firmly on the ‘value-creating ornament’. Sometimes, though, these criticisms seem to be not so far off the mark, and they’re given ample reinforcement by the ‘square-cross-section’ fanaticists and pseudorationalists who together have demonstrated that the ‘modern’ doesn’t need to be remotely connected to the good form. All those who strive to make good things can derive some consolation from this. But whether ‘the good form’ is good or not depends wholly on the quality and decency of the designer and the producer. I don’t want to invoke the well-known dictum about doing the decent thing. What is decent is perhaps well and fine, but it’s not sufficient to make a form good. Decency is one of the starting points for good form, the bare minimum, which is just about tolerable because it’s not indecent. But making the good form good is purely a question of design, a question of the ability to coordinate and order – the ability of the designer and those who are responsible for production. In addition it requires a capacity to use one’s aesthetic knowledge to find a way of counterbalancing all the irregularities that arise both naturally and technically, and bringing them together in a harmonious whole that is typical of its kind. In this moment making something good is a question of decency, to be sure, but at the same time it’s one of ability too.
1. Max Bill, form (eine bilanz der formentwickung um die mitte des XX. Jarhunderts), Werner, Basel, 1952.  2. Eugen Gomringer, ‘die gute form’, lecture published in typografische monatsblätter, Berne June/July 1961.  3. Margit Staber, ‘die gute form’, in form 14, 1961, p. 45 ff.
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Design for a radiator, 1963
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